Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Bloodwych: Inexplicably Still Eating

This was supposed to have been my clue to remove a blue gem from the Serpent Tower.

Continuing to play Bloodwych is a bit like eating something abominable--circus peanuts, say, or those awful wasabi snack mixes they have at some bars--for no other reason than a bowl of it is sitting in front of you. In a meta-cognitive way, I'm fascinated by my refusal to give up on it. Two days ago, I thought it was just the drugs. Now, I don't know. I only know that some part of my brain wants to continue playing it. I think it's the same part that continues to click on links on Reddit when it's 3:00 A.M. and the rest of my brain is screaming, "WHY did you click another link?! It's time to GO TO BED! Seriously, just get up right now--NOW--and GO TO BED! AAAARGH! You just clicked on ANOTHER one! Are you trying to kill us?!" Only in the case of Bloodwych, my brain is screaming about The Magic Candle.

This was almost your last Bloodwych screen shot before The Magic Candle welcome screen.

Since my last posting, I've encountered about 12 moments in which I thought I simply couldn't progress any further--delighting the more rational half of my brain--only to discover a solution just as I was about to quit. I was about to give up on finding the gem needed for the Moon Tower when I finally discovered it back in the Serpent Tower. On Level 2 of the Moon Tower, I discovered the only way I hadn't gone was through a locked door for which I didn't have the key. I was about to give up when I remembered that Helm said "magelock" was needed in the Moon Tower. Sure enough, it worked on the door that no key would unlock (usually, doors that respond to "magelock" also respond to generic keys). Another impassable door was opened by a key that was practically invisible on the floor next to a pillar. I had the perfect excuse there, but no, I just had to go and search one last time.

The bronze key here is so invisible (just above my cursor) that I couldn't remember why I took this screenshot and I nearly deleted it.

As I progress, I'm naturally encountering tougher monsters, and they're getting wise to the bob-and-weave trick. They like to wait until I'm at the end of a narrow corridor to pounce on me, or to outflank me in multiple groups. It annoys me that I can't tell what any of them are called. They are getting graphically more interesting.

And terrifying.

Also as I progress, the game is starting to make things interesting with more complicated puzzles. "Interesting," mind you, in the same way that Wichita is more interesting on Friday night than Thursday. But you take what you can get. Many of these puzzles involve spinners, and while I normally see them as a trite and tiresome dungeon-crawling clichés, I have to admit that Bloodwych does them right. In most games, spinners occur at spots where it's immediately apparent that you've stepped on them by the screen going all wonky. You just have to consult your compass to navigate them. Bloodwych, on the other hand, strategically places them at spots in which the surrounding area looks same from both directions, and then compounds the difficulty by having the compass only last a few turns after you cast it. Clever bastards.

A lot of the puzzles involve buttons and pressure plates that lower walls and pillars. Here's a complex example from the Moon Tower, Level 3, combining pressure plates, pits, a spinner, and anti-magic zones.

The pit at point (1) is unavoidable. You have to have the "levitate" spell when you reach this point to get over it. If you don't have it, you're rather screwed, because monsters don't respawn, so there's no opportunity to grind and level up to acquire it. Helm alluded to this in a comment a few days ago. It seems a little unfair on the part of the game.

Crossing point (1) puts you on pressure plate (2) even if you're levitating, which closes the southern door. At this point, you need to exit the room via the northern door. Unfortunately, squares (9) are all anti-magic squares, which kill the levitation spell.

"Levitate" fails just when I most need it.

To get through, you need to step on pressure plate (4), which lowers pillar (8), allowing you to get around to pressure plate (7), which lowers the pillar south of (6) (I forgot to number it). Pillar (6) itself is lowered by pressure plate (5). Complicating things is the spinner at (3), which keeps making you go in the wrong direction. Once all of the pillars are lowered, you can edge around to the pressure plate between (6) and (9), which at last closes the pit at (10). I'm not saying it's going to compete with Myst for puzzle difficulty, but it was the most complex thing so far and thus a welcome surprise.

This was the game's hint on this puzzle.

A few other things I think I've neglected to cover so far:

I had my archer/assassin in a melee position for a while, and I noted that he makes backstabs when the enemy's back is turned. He's not as useless as I thought.

You can easily tell the worth of a bit of armor by its effect on your armor class, but weapons are more difficult to evaluate. I assumed a mithril axe was better than a regular axe, of course, but then I found a "troll axe" and wasn't sure whether to dump my mithral axe or not. Tracking and averaging hit point damages seems like a little too much investment. I've also found a couple of wands and rings that I'm not sure what they do. In these things, it shares another similarity with Dungeon Master.

The number of points required to cast a spell decreases with each casting. Late yesterday, I finally got the "alchemy" spell and was able to convert unneeded equipment into piles of gold--no more rude shopkeepers. It started off requiring 15 spell points but after about 20 castings, it was down to 8.

As I said above, monsters don't respawn. Or, if they do, it takes a long, long time. Dungeon Master had a few areas with constant respawns where you could grind.

The game is inconsistent about whether foes can open doors. The best I can figure, they can open wooden doors but not metal doors and grates. This gives me some breathing room if I want to prepare some spells to fire off when the door opens. It's not a big exploit because they can step in the doorway quite easily and block you from closing it.

The party steels itself for the monsters beyond.

There are no "extra" areas. Virtually every room and corridor must be traversed to get to your objectives, which means that the game is almost completely linear.

Another gem recovered. Now to find the resurrection chamber.

Plot-wise, my word-count-to-playing-hours ratio is quite low. In about six hours of game time since the last posting, I ascended the Moon Tower and found the Moon Crystal. There were other illusory walls and button/pressure plate puzzles on the way. Not much else to say about it except that unless the last three towers are exceptionally easy, I'm about 40% done. I'm not going to spend all of the long weekend on this, though, so one way or another I'll wrap up this game by Saturday.

87 comments:

Wether you will complete this game or not, I am looking forward to your review of it. Despite all negative things about the game it seems there is something there poking for your attached interest and I want to see in the Gimlet what it could be.

There's something vaguely soothing about performing a repetitive task that doesn't force you to make too many decisions. It's why we re-watch films that we've seen several times already, why we sometimes eat an entire bag of Doritos, and why we play games like Minesweeper and Bloodwych for hours on end.

As a newcomer to this blog I have been thoroughly enjoying reading about your journeys through all these old school RPGs. However, as my personal RPG journey started with Eye of the Beholder and Ultima 7, which are still about 90 and 160 games away for you respectively, I would encourage you to throw in the towel on games if they become too much of a boring slog. It's not like your to-do list of games is a short one!

With regard to that almost-invisible key, is this a case of your colour-blindness not being taken into account by the game developer? There's a red/brown blob just above and to the left of the cursor in that screenshot that should be readily apparent to the non-colour-blind against the grey background.

God help me here, but I'm now filled with curiosity at how exactly the two can be compared. Besides the first syllable, there's really nothing I can think of that would be a commonality. You appreciating his sentiment makes it even more mysterious!

I fully understand, Chet, and am not unhappy, I was just wondering. I had the feeling even as I was typing my feelings that perhaps this was a little over the top even for one whose internal censor is badly damaged, like myself. And Amy, if you are REALLY curious, I could send you an email about what my feelings were that he deleted... :)

"Crossing point (1) puts you on pressure plate (2) even if you're levitating, which closes the southern door."

This is where I would have stopped playing (at least, in 2012. In the '90s I'd have taken what I could get and loved it) because it's infuriating to me when internal-game systems do not account for each other logically. You step on pressure plates while levitating? Really, Bloodwych?

It's interesting though that the game is getting more devious. I suspect you might have liked the extra level pack for Bloodwych more than the main game then, because it's reputedly more difficult and complex.

Nah, that happens everywhere in the game. Levitation simply doesn't negate pressure plates. I think that's because the spell was designed for one reason--levitate over pits--and there's no variable that ties pits and pressure plates together as "things on the floor."

In the beginning it's tempting to pick one of the Halflings, since they are cute and cuddly and have a good Charisma which is important when dealing with NPC (too low and they refuse to talk to you and you will have to return later), and they are also good at generating money, picking locks and making camping outside more comfy. But in the long run you are probably better off with fighter types, since the halflings are rather useless in combat and there is lots of hard combat in the late stages of the game.

Some of the characters you can recruit can also be recruited in MC 2 so I would try to complete the games with characters you can also play in MC 2.

So I'd recommend starting with the following characters:

Sakar. One of the best fighters in the game. The only companion you can play in all three MC games.

Nehor. Excellent ranger, who is superb with a bow and a good hunter. Hunter skill is useful for getting food in the wilderness and for detecting those annoying ambushes in dungeons.

Eflun. You need at least one Wizard. He is young and inexperienced, but has potential and will transfer to MC 2. The other wizard you can start with is Ziyx. His skills are better, but he's old and frail and won't transfer to MC 2.

Rexor. Human Knight. After the halflings he has the best Charisma and is a good fighter.

For the last character I'd take either one of the halflings for the benefits mentioned above, or Ziyx for a second spell caster.

You will find better characters on your travels, and may want to replace at least one of your starting companions, taking into consideration wether the character is transferable or not.

Other tips:

If you find a patch of mushrooms, don't be greedy.

Information gathering is vital. Write down or make screen caps of all dialogue.I also recommend writing down and organizing everything you learn about gods, teleportals, holy words, NPCs (where they are, skills they teach and Charisma needed to talk to them), ect. There's lots to keep track of in this game!

I don;t completely agree with this. I prefer to start out with a party that is good at making money--halflings!--and then upgrade party members later. And I finished twice with one halfling in the party (though no all the ones I started with) and the game still seemed very easy (but long).

Yes, the halfling are very useful early in the game, but as fighters they are lacking and as Wizards they are IIRC completely useless. So I guess you'll just have to decide if you want an easy start with charismatic entrepeneurs or go for the best possible combat party.The money the halflings generate are very nice early in the game, but as the game progresses it pales in comparison to what you make on looting and trading in gems.But I guess having one halfling as diplomat, lockpick and money maker is a good compromise even though he will always be the least useful character in combat. Once you reach Crystal Castle you'll find characters with better potential than most of your party members. But when I played I had kind of got attached to my party memebers and didn't have the heart to let them go, especially since I had invested so much time on money on increasing their skills and stats.So there are some tough decisions in this game when it comes to picking your friends.

As a note, the fact that if you pick all the mushrooms the patch will never grow back is clearly stated in the manual, which is now on my blog. I would LOVE for Chet to do a post just on the manual, but then, I'm ht one who sat down and scaned 60 pages of it, so I may be biased.

I actually liked the logistics of the game, equipping the party for a long trek in in dungeons and wilderness, and the time management part with some characters practicing skills, while others earn money or study spells. I think Magic Candle is the only CRPG where you can actually do something useful on a ship voyage, for example.Personally I though the game was just _too_ big and the combat too frequent, so I needed a break midway.

These sound like things that would be more fun in a real tabletop gaming scenario. Micromanaging all these pcs and stuff is a bit too much for me. Then again, people that play actual strategy games would find Magic Candle to be a walk in the park.

You create your own reality through your perceptions and your actions. Accept what you can't change; Change what you can. Then do more of whatever makes you happy!

It sounds like life has dealt you some shitty cards in the past. If you just sit there with those cards, then your hand will always be shitty. Move forward and get new cards. (Easy for me to say, I know.) Best wishes to you.

Also, as I don't know if you are serious: "curmudgeon, n. ‘An avaricious churlish fellow; a miser, a niggard’ (Johnson)."--curmudgeon, n.Second edition, 1989; online version June 2012. ; accessed 01 September 2012. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1893.

Avaricious and churlish... yes, that's what I see when I look in the mirror :) No, no, but I feel that way when I think about these games. I used to love them and play them,. Now I think I am in love with having loved them... when I look at them now and try to play, I quit way too early because it's all just boring and awful. Blah. Grunt.

And while I am going to turn 50 this Octogre, I still FEEL young inside. Thus my comment about becoming a curmudgeon at this early stage. And hellfire and damnation on those of you who think 49 is old! Blah. Grunt!

No. You can drop objects on the ground, but it doesn't seem to affect pressure plates. I haven't run into any pressure plates that only work when they're continually active, but then again someone said earlier about the need to split the party at some point, so perhaps that's why.

Did I see Chet write Magic Candle welcome screen?? I am getting psyched. I started Magic Candle about 3 weeks ago to see if I can finish it first. Well, at least before the end of the year. Played it back in the early 90s and it was a blast. I remember playing it for months.

I remember fondly seeing The Magic Candle in a computer magazine back in the day. I was 10 or 11 so I wasn't in charge of the game selection we had and I begged and begged for it to no avail. For months I read about it as much as possible in any game magazine I could get my hands on, sucking in any and all information about it so I could play it in my dreams at least. I think my Dad ended up getting Legacy of the Ancients instead (which I thought at the time was a very fun game. It's relative simplicity was perfect for a 10 yr old.) and we played the hell out of it. So, I am looking forward to seeing your Magic Candle adventure and vicariously living through you for a few moments next week as you plow your way through a game that ,for me at least, never was. I hope you enjoy it.

Funny how there are as many people talking about The Magic Candle as there are Bloodwich. As for me, I don't think BW looks all that great. That narrow screen would kill it for me right away.

I cannot, however, imagine how much ABSOLUTELY breathless fun my brother and I would have had playing this game together as kids. A 2p RPG for the C64??? And you can SEE the other characters in game and fight together??? I would have PISSED MY PANTS had I seen that back then. Really. Wet, dripping down the leg, piss pants.

Amazing how some features like that pop up WAY back in the day and then very RARELY thereafter. Kinda like that old DnD game (I think that's the name) you showed us on that old system that had solid orange, but crisp and detailed graphics while the games that came out for the next year or so had much worse. I wouldn't have thought the 64 or the like to be powerful enough to do such a thing as support simultaneous 2 player mode.

Two comments that I got notified about by e-mail mysteriously aren't showing up here or in my spam folder. I have no idea why. In one, Ice Cream Jonesy asked:

"I am creating an old school RPG and I have been looking for a good tool to let me create the maps: essentially, graph paper for a computer.

"Did you use a program to make that map from the Moon Tower? If not, could anyone recommend a program that would be ideal for this sort of thing? :)"

I continue to use Excel for my mapping. Readers have referred me to a few programs, but I've generally found them too limiting, especially in the ability to annotate squares with notes. I like the Excel process and I have a pretty good system going. You can see me doing it for Wizardry V here:

I remember fondly seeing The Magic Candle in a computer magazine back in the day. I was 10 or 11 so I wasn't in charge of the game selection we had and I begged and begged for it to no avail. For months I read about it as much as possible in any game magazine I could get my hands on, sucking in any and all information about it so I could play it in my dreams at least. I think my Dad ended up getting Legacy of the Ancients instead (which I thought at the time was a very fun game. It's relative simplicity was perfect for a 10 yr old.) and we played the hell out of it. So, I am looking forward to seeing your Magic Candle adventure and vicariously living through you for a few moments next week as you plow your way through a game that ,for me at least, never was. I hope you enjoy it.

Funny how there are as many people talking about The Magic Candle as there are Bloodwich. As for me, I don't think BW looks all that great. That narrow screen would kill it for me right away.

I cannot, however, imagine how much ABSOLUTELY breathless fun my brother and I would have had playing this game together as kids. A 2p RPG for the C64??? And you can SEE the other characters in game and fight together??? I would have PISSED MY PANTS had I seen that back then. Really. Wet, dripping down the leg, piss pants.

Amazing how some features like that pop up WAY back in the day and then very RARELY thereafter. Kinda like that old DnD game (I think that's the name) you showed us on that old system that had solid orange, but crisp and detailed graphics while the games that came out for the next year or so had much worse. I wouldn't have thought the 64 or the like to be powerful enough to do such a thing as support simultaneous 2 player mode.

You get to talk about wet dripping pissy pants and Bloodwych, and MY comments about... secretions, and... uh, discharges... and, um, 9 month package removals... gets deleted. Is the world fair?? he cries to the heavens.

I have that problem too: constantly doing one more thing and it gets later and later in the night, eventually it's early morning and I'm still in front of the computer. I'll just call it a normal addiction and live with it, or should I try to kick the habit? iduno It's getting late, but I got to watch some weird Japanese prank videos on youtube before I go to bed.

That happened to me with this blog. I missed work one time cause I over slept after not being able to stop clicking on the next game :) But whats the point of living if we don't enjoy ourselves on the ride.

My grandmother got me Magic Candle back in the day as something I could play while I was at their house on visits (they're relatively tech-savvy for old folks and have long been a multiple-computer household, even if they don't have a particularly deep understanding of them). Because of my limited access and youthful age I never got very far, but I can remember being very impressed with the ability to split my party and have them train and work individually.

PS: You dare blaspheme against the wasabi-coated snack foods? Infidel!

They say that all bar snacks are there to make you thirsty, but the wasabi things are so blatant about it, it's unbelievable. I eat a small handful of that stuff and I throw back my $13 gimlet in one gulp.

Maybe a gimlet isn't the best remedy for thirst, I'm thinking more like a 1 galleon bottle of soda. Now there's something you simply can't throw back in one gulp, even if you tried, unless you're Katelyn Brooks, in which case you don't have to try.

(So that if I have to reupload it I can easily update the link without having to repost it here. Also, blogwhoring).

Anyway, I posted in there how to read a CBZ file, and why I'm not using a CB7 (Only one of the three readers I tested would open it), and yeah. If anyone wants to clean the scans up, crop them, etc, feel free, just let me know. Also, I don't own this in any way, so feel free to rehost it somewhere more stable.

Oh, I should note, the 4 pages of notes at the end are not my Dad's; they are the person (Someone who goes by the nickname of Rat that I've not met; All my Dad's friends from that era have nicknames *shrug*) who gave my Dad the game when he was done. I have no idea if they are accurate or useful. You might want to try reading them if you get really stuck, but they are pretty indecipherable.

All this talk about Magic Candle reminds me of when I had it for C64 when it came out and how my friend was so annoyed with the 5 letter limit for the character name he named his character 12345 LOL oh funny times

First is of course King of Dragon Pass which I could recommend wholeheartedly. Replay value is incredible and IMHO there's more roleplaying involved than in dozen traditional RPGs combined.

Another is Inquisitor which came completely from out of the dark. From Czech. Hasn't even seen reviews about it, but apparently you're not playing nicest guy in it. East european gaming industry has produced load of nice surprises on different genres and this might be one more.

We prefer when people talk about our country like about middle european than east european :-) But ok, it´s just about point of view.Also there is not so big dark here how it could seem :-)But you redeemed yourself by your last sentence :-)

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About Me

Chester Bolingbroke is a professional in his early 40s who really should be doing something more productive with his time. He lives in Maine with his patient wife, Irene, and when he isn't playing CRPGs, he enjoys traveling, crossword puzzles, and jazz.

The Rules

1. I am following a list of CRPGs in chronological order derived from several sources, including Wikipedia, MobyGames, GameFAQs, and contributions from readers. I am going in chronological order on two sections of the list: a) all RPGs in the 1990s, and b) non-PC RPGs that I missed during my first four years of blogging when I played only games released for DOS.

2. To appear on my play list, a game must be a a) single-player RPG released for a personal computer, and b) in a language that uses a Latin alphabet. Console games do not appear on my playlist unless they also had PC releases during their original release schedule (generally within 2 years of the console release). Exceptions made and ambiguity resolved at my discretion.

3. My definition of "RPG" requires the game to have three core criteria: 1) character leveling and development, 2) combats based at least partly on attribute-derived statistics, 3) inventories consisting of something other than just puzzle items. If I reach a game on my playlist and it lacks one of these items, I may mark it as "rejected" and skip it.

4. I can reject independent and shareware RPGs if they are clearly amateur efforts with no innovations or accolades attached to them.

5. I cannot use cheats. I cannot look at FAQs or walkthroughs until I have finished playing.

6. I don't have to win every game, but I must play for at least six hours.